Update, update, update!

[Antonath]

Unity update please!

Seriously, you get everyone's hopes up then leave us totally dangling.

What, you were hoping we'd all create new US accounts so you wouldn't have to bother with an import?

Communication with the players used to be one of the best parts of Horizons - named devs and CS reps on the forums constantly, devs and CS in game...

Now we've got one, unnamed, point of contact in customer services. Great. Oh, "Horizons_CS" is doing a great job of getting players' problems sorted, but we hear nothing about the game itself. Especially a minor issue like the entire EU player community!

Good grief, don't we even merit a quick "Run into problems - may take a while"?

You've got a IT professionals on the forum who don't understand why this is taking so long. I mean, you haven't even tried a test merge of one character to Blight - and character copies to Blight used to be routine.

I'm deliberately using the rants forum here, because I wonder if our usual polite nodding and acceptance is making the devs think we're happy to wait a bit longer. I'm sick of saying things like "we realise this is a big task" and "take the time to get it right", and all those other platitudes I've been adding to my posts, in an attempt to seem reasonable and not get moaned at by mods and other posters who can't grasp the fact that WE WANT AN UPDATE!

Antonath

[Takora Drakan]

Good roard my scaled friend! Every day it takes longer my hope fades more and more to see my dragon again. And hey there are many other mmos out there why bother about this then? I myself dont know why I'm still here and lurking around. It seems they simply dont care about us. If it's not possible to transfer us then say it so, then i dont need to look everyday here to see if we get an update on the transfer status.

[Spirit]

Seconded by me!!

I must say I do smell a rat, and it's growing by the day, has Vitrium branded on its rump and it's feeding on my sub.

It was most certainly better when individual devs posted here, and not the impersonal Horizons_CS. There must be a way for that to be remedied??

As for what is going on... please just say something, even if it's bad. I used to work on software, and I know what bad is and can appreciate it. Not knowing anything is just pants, frankly. I'd even go as far as to call it p*ss poor...

I'm sorry perhaps I didn't make myself clear... I said it's Pi ... VERY POOR!!

... and I reserved that term for my ex-employers customer services team who took on average 2 months to *acknowledge* a complaint let alone do anything to help.

If you're busy, fine, but for heavens sakes take 5 and say something to your european customers. You have a lot of players who have not returned (yet) awaiting news on this, and a lot of income riding on your response. Don't f*** it up.

Cheers;

Rakku

[Vaz]

You people get very good communication compared to some other MMO communities. You know Virtrium is working on it, because they've said so before. Never mind that they aren't repeating the exact same thing every other day.

Count your blessings.

[Antonath]

You people get very good communication compared to some other MMO communities. You know Virtrium is working on it, because they've said so before. Never mind that they aren't repeating the exact same thing every other day.

Count your blessings.

Oh, I know we get good communication compared to some other games.

Was I comparing this to other games?

And as for "they've said so before", how are you enjoying the brand new client we were promised, and the expansion pack they released? You know, the one they said they were going to release in the shops?

And screw "every other day", try every other month. The last thing we heard was one question in an interview in mid-September.

(Edit) - Ok, the post content from CS was october 6th.

No offence, but I'm not counting many blessings amongst that lot.

Antonath

[Antonath]

http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=17168

Thank you!

That's all we've been asking for.

We are not forgotten and ignored!

Antonath

[Vaz]

Oh, I know we get good communication compared to some other games.

Was I comparing this to other games?

And as for "they've said so before", how are you enjoying the brand new client we were promised, and the expansion pack they released? You know, the one they said they were going to release in the shops?

And screw "every other day", try every other month. The last thing we heard was one question in an interview in mid-September.

No offence, but I'm not counting many blessings amongst that lot.

Antonath

You're looking at the wrong lot.

- The game is alive, and for a niche game, thriving.
- Virtrium is a very good company, relatively.
--- Virtrium has stated and demonstrated a commitment to fostering and developing the game's strengths, rather than taking the idiotic route of trying to turn it into something it isn't for the sake of appealing to a different, already-overflowing market.
--- Virtrium communicates, not only via forums, but via email. Their communications are sincere and, in the case of their roleplayish update-announcement emails, pleasantly surprising.
--- Virtrium isn't EI Interactive, Sony Online Entertainment, Gameforge, or any of several other bad examples.
--- Virtrium has demonstrated care for their game's community in a number of ways, including but not limited to providing instructions for how people monetarily cheated by EII can seek recourse, apologising for downtime and other issues, providing support via tickets, seeking and listening to our feedback on the billing system, etc.
--- Considering how small Virtrium is, they're managing to accomplish a lot:
- Several patches have been tested and pushed to live. Granted, there have been some bugs, but--OMG!--Virtrium made effort to fix them. Consider the complexity of MMOs in general, and the age of Horizons' code in particular.
- Blight was reopened.
- There has been a live event, the Fall Festival + Hammer's Rest.
- New content, both general and attached to the aforementioned live event.
- A sound billing system.

Besides, in regard to MMOGs, old promises should never be clung to, dredged up, or paid mind to.

EDIT: Haha, see...another item to add to the "Virtrium cares" point.

[Antonath]

You're looking at the wrong lot.

- The game is alive, and for a niche game, thriving.
- Virtrium is a very good company, relatively.
--- Virtrium has stated and demonstrated a commitment to fostering and developing the game's strengths, rather than taking the idiotic route of trying to turn it into something it isn't for the sake of appealing to a different, already-overflowing market.
--- Virtrium communicates, not only via forums, but via email. Their communications are sincere and, in the case of their roleplayish update-announcement emails, pleasantly surprising.
--- Virtrium isn't EI Interactive, Sony Online Entertainment, Gameforge, or any of several other bad examples.
--- Virtrium has demonstrated care for their game's community in a number of ways, including but not limited to providing instructions for how people monetarily cheated by EII can seek recourse, apologising for downtime and other issues, providing support via tickets, seeking and listening to our feedback on the billing system, etc.
--- Considering how small Virtrium is, they're managing to accomplish a lot:
- Several patches have been tested and pushed to live. Granted, there have been some bugs, but--OMG!--Virtrium made effort to fix them. Consider the complexity of MMOs in general, and the age of Horizons' code in particular.
- Blight was reopened.
- There has been a live event, the Fall Festival + Hammer's Rest.
- New content, both general and attached to the aforementioned live event.
- A sound billing system.

All perfectly valid points - Virtrium have done relative wonders in the short time since they took over. Which entirely misses the problem I and others were having - a lack of news about Unity .

Besides, in regard to MMOGs, old promises should never be clung to, dredged up, or paid mind to.

So at what point do promises become "old"? A year? 6 months? 3?

EDIT: Haha, see...another item to add to the "Virtrium cares" point.

Agreed, which is why I put a big "thank you" on my last post. I may be ranting and demanding things, but I'm polite when I get them

Antonath

[Velea]

Just a note here:

Please don't think that the announcement was in response to this, or any other, thread. It wasn't. I realized over the weekend it had been about a month since any word went out.

Rants such as this and the numerous other threads are way more likely to make someone NOT want to post than want to.

Anyone who's a parent will understand this analogy:

You tell your kids that as soon as you have enough money saved, the family will take a vacation to Disney. The kids are so excited about going to Disney that they ask every other day (or week) "do we have enough money yet?" Soon you start to get so sick of hearing the question, especially because the car broke down, the kids got sick, and the roof started leaking so you had to break into the vacation fund for repair money, that you start to wish you'd never told them you would go to Disney in the first place. You stop wanting to think about Disney at all because it's just a reminder of what you can't give but want to. It get so bad that finally one day the wrong kid asks just one more time at the wrong moment of the day, and you crack. You blurt out "We aren't going to Disney any more, ok? So stop asking." As the kid runs off crying, you realize that you didn't mean that, but now that the words are out, it's tempting to not go up and say that you're sorry you blew up, and you were still trying to get to Disney. That you just don't know how and when, and were frustrated by the repeated questions. In fact, to save yourself the questions, you don't say that. You apologize for blowing up, but don't tell them about the plan.

The developers have TOLD you that they are doing their best to provide a solution for the Unity database. Please don't turn that into a "Disney trip". Know that it's something they are working on and when it can happen, it will. Ok?

[LOVWYRM]

uppss

[Spirit]

That's all very well ... but I'm all for proactive discussion and open-box methods. It encourages ideas and other lines of thought. For example:

Unity update for December: "Looking into ways to bridge the gap between the older software version on Unity and that on the current live shards, in order for the character information to not be broken"... or even a poll every now and then. They might be looking at stuff that the player base might not need, or they may be missing out stuff that people really want.

I don't sit there on my flight deck muttering to myself about how the captain is about to bork the landing because they forgot to close the airbrakes. I speak up.

I really believe that this kind of process should be more open than it is. This could be such a good and two-way process to be going through, but it just isn't. I understand your example Velea but I don't think it's applicable to this scenario.

Graeme

Edit: I'll add to this... it's great to see the announcement asking for artists to help work with the game. That shows us that development is progressing, and that makes me glad. I'm still foxed that a whole bunch of players willing to pay for a game, and are currently not doing so due to this situation, are being somewhat stranded with not even a vague estimate. Economics suggests to get your fans back on board and generate some cash, then your development can progress without being sidetracked by people like me and Antonath (and any number of others) and the game will rock even more when new people sign up!

I'll use an analogy of my own... you arrive home with your shopping to then cook dinner. You have three bags (Chaos, Order and Unity)... Unity's bag splits and a whole load of onions and potatoes go dashing across the floor picking up fluff. What do you do? Just carry on cooking dinner, and maybe pickup the odd onion/potato (with fluff) as required. Nah ... you collect the dropped items (customers), sort them out (remove the fluff and clean), replace them in another bag ... then continue cooking your dinner successfully.

I appreciate their response, whether it was because of any said thread or otherwise... but I'm sure opening up a little more than a pin-head could be a good thing.

[Velea]

Could you explain to me how it isn't? Because I don't see yours as being an analogy either. One is a safety issue (the plane), and you wouldn't be telling the captain how to fly the airplane, and asking for an update every few seconds if he had "closed the airbrakes", would you? You'd alert him to the situation (which has been done numerous times). And again, this isn't a safety issue.

Something was said will happen at some point in the future. What's the purpose to asking for when that future is coming when, right now, it's obvious that no one knows that answer? If your analogy had been to asking when you would be deboarding the plane down to the exact second, then I could understand. And that's what I'm trying to do, btw, is understand why people feel they need such frequent, constant updates.

You'll get to Disney when there's enough money to get there.

[Antonath]

This isn't a trip to Disney. We're not children. We're perfectly capable of understanding that some things may be taking a higher priority, that funding is limited, and that priorities may be changing on a regular - and rapid - basis. We just like to know we are still a priority.

We're not asking "do we have enough money to go to Disney yet", we're asking "How much money is in the account, and assuming there are no unexpected outgoings, how much short of the target amount are we".

Some of us are also asking "If I don't spend all my pocket money this month, will it help". A few are asking "should I get a paper-round and contribute?"

And, frankly, if VI are immature and unprofessional enough to ditch importing Unity accounts because the players asked too much, then they deserve to go bust right now. That was an entirely ludicrous comparison to make.

Antonath

[LOVWYRM]

I do not care, if the announcement was a response to this thread or not.
I appreciated it.
What is the use of emphasizing it was not?

I´m not sure, if I like being compared with a whining child.
Twice.

I sure dislike clumsy handling of sensitive topics

[Spirit]

Without going into airline safety procedures (at almost 10pm forget it!!) ... I think we've established that analogy's, whether Onions or Disney, are no good ... it's too late for such things.

"it's great to see the announcement asking for artists to help work with the game. That shows us that development is progressing, and that makes me glad. I'm still foxed that a whole bunch of players willing to pay for a game, and are currently not doing so due to this situation, are being somewhat stranded with not even a vague estimate. Economics suggests to get your fans back on board and generate some cash, then your development can progress without being sidetracked by people like me and Antonath (and any number of others) and the game will rock even more when new people sign up!"

That's the bit that counts... forget the rest of the post. The only reason I can see for the current action is that the Euro's were such a small percentage of player base that we come somewhat down on the list of priorities (a small percentage of revenue). A good number will float off to other games, perhaps to never look back, after thinking... "Ahh they just want us to start over so we'll forget ... no way"

I'm not trying to have a moan Velea, I'm trying to put over my honest thoughts. I really appreciate everything the mods and devs do for this game, but in this case if I'm thinking these things, chances are I'm not alone. I ****Seriously**** wavered over the cancel button this evening, as I feel that I'm being taken for a sucker to start over. I took 3 1/2 years to get to 90 and, like Antonath, not thrilled with starting over and loosing all that time. Sure I do play on Chaos, I'd still like my invested time back please.

Am I really that bovvered to start over ??

[Velea]

Hang on both of you... First, I never said anyone was being a "whiny child". Trust me, if I wanted to call someone a whiny child, I'd probably do it.

The analogy, as I said already, was to point out that I do not understand what the purpose of asking repeatedly is. I could have just as readily used an analogy of a boss to employee asking repeatedly "Is this project done yet?" when it clearly isn't. If it was, then the project would be in hand. How is trying to understand better what the point to this rant topic is somehow something that I should be criticized for?

The point in emphasizing that it was not in response is simple. Same as the analogy. What are you looking for Virtrium to do with the repeated requests for an update? Is just knowing "Nothing to report" every week enough? That's what I'm looking for, folks. What, specifically, do you want from Virtrium? And please, don't just answer "an update". To me, that's not specific unless what you'd like is for every time someone asks for "an update" an answer of "Nothing to report" is enough.

Oh, and please stop attacking me. I'm trying to understand and help.

[Velea]

Reading Spirit's post (must have been typing at the same time) again leads me to wonder....

Why does development in one area (art) equate to disappointed feelings? Different people do different jobs in any company as I see it. Honestly and sincerely trying to understand your feelings, Spirit, because I don't right now.

[Spirit]

We'd make an awesome Scrabble team with all these words...

From Vitrium I certainly would like to see some evidence of what they're doing, in relation to anything. Previews of future content might drive new players to sign up... the odd monthly post like:
"We have managed to write a script to copy the inventory of a character from Unity to Chaos" or "We are aiming for this kind of solution, what do you think?".

Something more interactive than "we're working on it". I used to do system development... I wasn't very good at it and we had a nutty md who was always on your back. Even if he'd creep into the department weekly we could show something. If a VI peep sat down for 5 mins and wrote a good post about what's "going down" I think it would be good to see. It's like Carmack and any game he has a part in... "When it's done it's done", but his player-base isn't paying a sub to see him say that.

Graeme

[Antonath]

Hang on both of you... First, I never said anyone was being a "whiny child". Trust me, if I wanted to call someone a whiny child, I'd probably do it.

Maybe not whiny, but the child bit was a definite implication of your Disney analogy. Even if not meant to be read like that.

The analogy, as I said already, was to point out that I do not understand what the purpose of asking repeatedly is. I could have just as readily used an analogy of a boss to employee asking repeatedly "Is this project done yet?" when it clearly isn't. If it was, then the project would be in hand. How is trying to understand better what the point to this rant topic is somehow something that I should be criticized for?

Again, bosses don't ask "is it done yet", they ask "when will it be done" and (if they're good bosses) "what can I do to make things go quicker". That's what we're asking.

The point in emphasizing that it was not in response is simple. Same as the analogy. What are you looking for Virtrium to do with the repeated requests for an update? Is just knowing "Nothing to report" every week enough? That's what I'm looking for, folks. What, specifically, do you want from Virtrium? And please, don't just answer "an update". To me, that's not specific unless what you'd like is for every time someone asks for "an update" an answer of "Nothing to report" is enough.

I already asked this, in two separate threads. One got moved, and the other (in keeping with one of the rules of the internet) was at the bottom of a page, and thus ignored So here we go again, this time a bit shorter...

If possible, tell us what the specific current technical problem is.

Tell us if there is any work we can do to help.

If we can't be told due to proprietary information being involved, tell us that instead.

Oh, and please stop attacking me. I'm trying to understand and help.

Well, how would you feel if a forum moderator compared you to a child? I know it wasn't intentional, but still. We were simply expressing our displeasure with those comments, and the implication (again, even if unintended) that VI would also treat us in this way if we don't shut up.

Antonath

PS: I agree with Rakku - 10:00pm is not the time for analogies, aeronautical, theme-park-ical, boss-ical or otherwise.

[Velea]

See, THAT is what I needed. Now I have something I can take back to the devs and say "Would it be possible to, say, every other week, put out a short project update?" I did see you said weekly, but I'd rather not push my luck, keeping in mind that from what I've read most of the developers are part time, not full time, so I don't want to take that much time out from working. From having done status reports in the past for various jobs, I can say it takes more than just 5 minutes to produce something to go out to the public. Internal, perhaps only 5.

Thank you, Spirit. Thank you very much.